In a communication on injuries by lightning in Africa, Emin Pasha shows that in the central regions (from latitude 2° to 6° north) they are of average frequency, while further north, as at Fashoda, Khartoum, and Berber, they are nearly unheard of. A belief prevails among the Soudan Arabs that with every flash of lightning a piece of meteoric iron is thrown to the earth. They fancy that whoever is able to secure such a piece of iron has gained a great treasure, because swords and knives made from it can not be surpassed in quality, and their possession gives immunity from danger in battle, and protection against lightning-strokes. Sheik Narr, chief of the Takkala Mountains, is said to have resisted all Egyptian attacks, and to have preserved his people's independence, through the possession of such a sword.
Antipyrine, an artificial alkaloid obtained from coal-tar, is recommended by M. E. Dupuy and M. Ossian-Bonnet as a remedy for seasickness. M. Dupuy asserts that, administered for three days before embarking and during the first three days of the voyage, in doses of three grammes a day, it prevented sea-sickness during the voyage across the Atlantic. M. Ossian-Bonnet usually obtained effects in ten minutes from a dose of one and a half gramme, and in no case had to use more than three grammes in two doses. When the stomach would not hold the medicine, a subcutaneous injection was efficient.
M. de Chardonnet has artificially produced a substance having the apparent qualities of silk. He treats the ethereal solution of cellulose with a similar solution of perchloride of iron or perchloride of tin, and, adding an alcoholic solution of tannic acid, obtains a substance that can be drawn out into a thread. These threads, which may be spun into stronger cords, are supple, transparent, and cylindrical or flattened; silky to the look and the touch; break with a weight of twenty-five kilogrammes per square millimetre; burn without the fire extending; are slowly decomposed by heating; are not acted upon by acids and alkalies of moderate degrees of concentration, water, alcohol, or ether; but are dissolved in etherated alcohol and acetic ether.
The Belgian Government, after experiments to ascertain the best methods of making the clothing of its soldiers water-proof, has adopted that of bathing the goods in acetate of alumina, and then drying them in the air, without wringing. The doctors have expressed the opinion that clothing thus prepared offers no obstacle to perspiration, and is therefore hygienically unobjectionable. It appears also to be determined that the goods are not depreciated either in quality or color by the preparation. The only serious objection to the process is its cost.
While the question of the origin of the Aryans is under discussion, Mr. G. Bertin suggests that we may learn something of it by looking further than we have yet done into the roots of their languages. Even in the oldest specimens they bear evidence of being hybrids—in inconsistencies of syntax; in the promiscuous use of prepositions and postpositions; in having many words and roots to express the same objects; and in the use of three genders. Hence the original tongue may have been a fusion of two languages—say of Accadian or some closely related speech and some Semitic language. The supposition is supported by the fact that a great many resemblances have been observed between Accadian and Sanskrit.
A new view of fetichism is taken by Major A. B. Ellis, in his book on the "Tshi speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast." He does not think it characteristic of primitive peoples, or of races low in the scale of civilization, but believes that it is arrived at only after considerable progress has been made in religious ideas, when the older form of religions becomes secondary. And "it owes its existence to the confusion of the tangible with the intangible, of the material with the immaterial; to the belief in the indwelling god being gradually lost sight of, until the power, originally believed to belong to the god, is finally attributed to the tangible and inanimate object itself."
Some recent comparative analyses, made at Dundee, Scotland, of the air of sewers and that of the close rooms of some of the well inhabited houses of the city, turned out to the advantage of the sewers. That is, the analysts found in small and ill-ventilated houses more carbonic acid, more organic matter, and far more micro-organisms than in the sewer-air they examined; so that, if the experiments were to be taken as final and conclusive, the inhabitants of a small room would improve their position by living in the atmosphere of a sewer! The experiments are, of course, not to be thus taken; but it is easy to conceive of cases in which the inference would be correct. The lesson to be drawn from it would be, not that sewer air is less dangerous than it is thought to be, but an admonition of the necessity for improving the sanitary condition of some houses.
The Zirknitzen Lake in central Carniola, according to Herr Putik's description, exhibits remarkable phenomena of periodical emptying and filling. A gigantic cave, called Gilovca or Karlovca by the natives, and situated at the northwest corner of the lake, forms an outlet for the overflow. It lies at the foot of perpendicular rocks, and leads to a number of subterranean lakes, five of which Herr Putik has crossed.
